Tag Archive: I am a bad person

I recently linked to Reasoning With Vampires under my lulzy linkage because I read a few of the sentence autopsies and about choked from laughter.

A couple of days later, I’m considering moving the link to the writers’ resources area. That blog is, in some ways, the best sentence-level writing instruction I’ve ever seen. She points out the flaws, the unnecessary words, the repetitive headdesks, the needlessly purple prose with an endless supply of snark, so that I keep reading and laughing and reading more. The best thing, though, is that while reading I notice things that I do in my own writing. I think reading chunks of Reasoning With Vampires before going into major editing fits will be immensely helpful as a reminder of what I’m looking to cut.

And then through all of this, even while laughing my ass off, I find myself feeling a little bad for Stephenie Meyer – honestly, it’s gotta suck to have someone combing over your writing and mocking it at a sentence-by-sentence level. Like, mortifying. I recognize that being an author means having to have titanium-level, unbreakably thick skin, but still. Ouch.

But still, I laugh. This potentially means that I’m a bad person and I should feel bad, but I’ll survive. It’s funny.

ETA: I *am* a bad person. I just came across this picture in Reasoning With Vampires:

I *did* hope that someone would catch that truant little fucker. And most of the time, I kinda wanted Jim to get sent down the river.
Reader, I suck.

ETA 2: I wanted that to happen to Jim not because of what it would mean to him/his character (which would be getting shoved back into slavery, which would be no-lulz terrible), but because it would give Huck nothing noteworthy to do, which would mean that THE STUPID BOOK WOULD END. Honestly, my main reaction to Huckleberry Finn was to read on in hopes that Huck would drown in the Mississippi.

Which lead me to think about plotting. It’s not actually at all easy: just figure out what needs to happen to make the book end (i.e., let “someone [catch] that truant little fucker”) and prevent that event from occurring. Simple, non?

I’m thinking plotting because I’m thinking about NaNo often. More on that at not-1:30am.